Real Love
by SonicGurl98
Summary: Returning to Station Square after having disappeared for months, Sonic is ready to do what he feels he must do in order to live his life the right way. But, when his night goes south, a life-long friend helps him learn that it doesn't matter what's the wrong or right way to live as long as he keeps on going and believes in himself... Oneshot, aged-up Sonic/Tails


"What do I have to lose?" Sonic said to himself, out loud, in front of everyone else in the restaraunt's waiting room. The blue hedgehog—whose cheeks were red with embarrassment—sank in his seat as he received many a confused or judgmental look from those around him, either waiting for their table to be cleared or, not unlike Sonic, waiting for their date. " _Well I sure sound confident,_ " thought the uncertain speedster.

He would have guessed she would be there sooner, given the fact that she had been begging him to _marry_ her for over a _decade,_ but he knew it wouldn't matter once she arrived. Until then, he just had to... " _ **Wait...**_ " Sonic groaned inwardly, being forced into doing one of his least-favorite things in the world _just then_ hitting him. "Why am I even bothering with this?" He asked himself, in his head, shortly before a rush of guilt hit him for the negative—but honest—thought.

Finally, as if right on cue to pull him out of his own head, he heard a familiar jingle come from his phone. It was one of his favorite songs, the one song that could lift his spirits even when he felt hopeless, so naturally he set it to play when his best friend Tails Prower called. Quickly, the hedgehog grabbed his phone and answered the call, saying, "Hey, l'il bro, it's been awhile! What's up?"

Needless to say, it wasn't quite the same as it was before, having been awhile since they had last spoken, but with that there came a sense of excitement to hear from one another again, as, after a brief pause, he finally heard the familiar voice of his two-tailed friend through the speaker of his phone. "Hey Sonic! I'm gonna be testing a new solar-powered battery for my new house, upgrading my computer's memory with a solid state drive that has a sixteen-terabyte capacity, downloading a new app that I'll probably lose several hours pointlessly playing – so _nothing,_ really," he joked, sharing a chuckle with his friend before adding, "I was actually about to ask you what _you_ were doing."

Understanding less than half of what was just said to him before the joke, Sonic grinned, "That's my little buddy! You take care of all that, pal..." For a brief moment, Sonic had to fight the urge to speed over to the fox's house that he had yet to see outside of pictures. Reminding himself repeatedly of what he was doing, he sighed, "I'm... kind of busy, right now... this may come as a shock to you—it's still a shock to me, if I'm being honest, but... I have this date with Amy..." Dead silence followed, upon mentioning that, leading Sonic to say, "... Tails? Buddy?... Hello?"

More silence.

Right as the hedgehog was about to hang up, he heard chuckles from Tails's end, accompanied by him saying, "Okay, Sonic, that was a _funny_ one. Maybe the funniest one I've heard all _week,_ haha! Really. I almost believed you were seriously going to date Amy! After she'd spent years relentlessly chasing you! That's just the most illogical thing I've ever heard!" This time, Sonic fell silent, awkwardly, feeling as though his friend was unknowingly putting into perspective how ridiculous the whole situation was. "... You weren't being serious, were you...?" Tails asked, before being met with silence on the other side. Checking to see if his friend was still on, he asked, "Are you still there, Sonic?"

Nodding, even though they were on the phone and the fox wouldn't be able to see it, Sonic answered, "Yep, Sonic the disappointing loser who peaked about a decade ago and is now settling his butt off, still here." He gave a nervous chuckle after that bit of self-deprecating humor, but he knew he'd really brought the whole mood down. In an attempt to make up for it, Sonic started, "I'm sorr—"

"—I'm sorry, Sonic, that was my bad..." Tails interjected apologetically, reluctantly offering, "A-Amy's nice, you'll have a great time with her tonight, I'm... _at least_ eighty-nine point nine-nine-nine-nine percent sure of it."

Detecting some insincerity, as well-meaning as it may have been, the hedgehog replied, "Yeah I know, it's not what I thought I'd be doing with my life at 25 either, but... geesh, when you get to 25 and you're still living alone, not raising any kids or doing any of the things you thought would just happen on their own... you just start to ask yourself..." He sighed, before noticing Amy Rose approaching in the distance, "... What am I doing?" Sonic said as he looked hopelessly at his date coming towards him, before adding, "... I-is what you start asking yourself, I mean... Look, pal, she's here now, I gotta go. I'll see if we can catch up later, okay?"

Sonic could hear the adult fox let a disappointed sound escape himself from his side of the phone, before Tails told the hedgehog, "Okay, Sonic, you two have fun. Bye." It was then that the fox hung up.

He stared at the phone for a moment, thinking of all that he wanted to tell Tails, letting himself—for a brief moment—wonder about the blue-eyed fox, before shaking his head, "No, no, I'm not gonna be thinking about him, it's time for my date," he told himself as he re-focused and finally gave a wave to his date – heading over to her while doing his best to shove the thoughts back to where it came from, before speaking, "Hey Amy, I uh... got a reservation for us, over in there. Do you still feel up to this?" Immediately after the words left him he realized that was kind of a redundant question, especially given who he was asking.

The pink hedgehog gave a polite smile to the blue hedgehog before passive-aggressively remarking, "I am if _you_ are, Mister 'Doesn't Show Up To Walk His Date To The Restaraunt,'" then walking ahead of the hedgehog who was frozen in a quart of confusion and a dash of shock, who momentarily caught up with her and followed as they were led to their table for two.

As the sapphire speedster took a seat, he offered, "I would—uh... I would've walked you here if you'd asked me to..." then, a thought hit him as he saw Amy bitterly pull up a chair for herself, causing him to say, "Aww, Amy! I was supposed to pull up a chair for you, wasn't I? Geesh, where did _my_ head run off to, right?" He chuckled a little, trying to lighten the mood with the self-awareness that he was bungling the entire date, but that did little to ease the tension present at the table, as his date seemingly refused to acknowledge his words. Resigning to it, he sighed and grabbed the menu like Amy had and began to scan through it, puzzled.

Minutes went by before Amy began to notice the hedgehog fruitlessly searching through the menu over and over, puzzling her as well, leading her to finally 'bite' and ask, "Okay, what's the problem now?"

"P-problem?" Sonic repeated to her, startled out of his search, "I don't—I don't see any problem here, I'm just looking through this menu and we're having... just the _greatest_ time here, at this place that somehow _doesn't_ sell chili dogs," the hedgehog assured her through gritted teeth, albeit while accidentally letting on what was bothering him at that very moment.

Nearly shocked into silence at the sheer display of ignorance in front of her, Amy replied, "... Y-yeah, Sonic. There aren't any chili dogs. This is a fancy restaurant, not a _diner._ "Sonic shrank at that, but did his best to listen on as she finished, "Now just please find something with a name you can't pronounce and pick that before you embarrass me even more. Please?" Her date then sighed as he looked through the menu one last time, internally made his decision, and put the menu down.

Tension built as silence grew, in a deeply awkward clash between one waiting for the other to speak and the other having no idea what to speak of. Sonic was growing increasingly anxious and Amy was finding herself getting more and more impatient of the oblivious blue hedgehog, as she then spoke up, annoyed, "Well don't be in such a hurry to notice how I look, _Sonic._ "

Blinking, Sonic reluctantly checked Amy out, noticing how conventionally attractive she looked and getting the signal that he was supposed to react with awe and excitement without necessarily feeling it himself, leading him to attempt to compliment her like he was supposed to, "Oh... whoa, Amy, you look... startling?" That response didn't seem sufficient, judging by the roll of the pink hedgehog's eyes, so the blue one retried, "Uh... Pretty?" A smile grew on his date's face, so he smiled in return, "All right, I did it! I did a date thing!" exclaimed Sonic, nervously, eliciting a giggle from Amy.

The first giggle in their entire 'wonderful' night they were supposed to be having, together.

At last, a 'golden platinum blonde'-haired waitress arrived, sporting a welcoming, salary-earning smile as she greeted the two, "Hello there, my name is Madonna and I'll be your waitress for tonight. What will you two be having?"

Speaking up first, Amy answered, "I'll be having the house salad, thank you very much," the waitress nodded and was about to move on and ask Sonic for his order when Amy abruptly added, "Oh! And, for the drink, I'll just be having water—with a lemon in it, please and thank you." Madonna cheerily nodded before moving on and getting the next order, asking the blue hedgehog what he wanted.

"Ah..." Sonic said as he looked through the menu hopelessly, before finally giving up and responding, "... what she's having, I guess. No drink." He failed to make eye-contact with the waitress when he made the order, his mind was only half there at the restaurant on his date – the other half still stuck on his two-tailed friend

The date itself was, in Sonic's mind, not as unpleasant as it could've been, but still he simply could not fully take his mind off of his friend, Tails, and how he wanted to be with him rather than at that restaurant. "No, c'mon, _focus,_ " he told himself, doing his best to focus on his date's eyes and her... stuck-together eyelashes? "Um... Amy?" Sonic called her attention, "Did uh... did you curl your eyelashes last?" Asked the hedgehog, to Amy's stunned bewilderment.

Not reading the situation well at all, Sonic continued, "It's—it's really not that big of a deal, I'd just keep in mind for the future that curlers work best on clean lashes so it's a little easier to curl them first and apply the mascara afterwards, or at least wait until the mascara dries? I totally get it, in any case, I made the same mistake early on, don't worry about it too much. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes." He offered the warmest, most-sincere smile he had perhaps given her in years, genuinely meaning to help her out.

Amy was shocked into silence for a brief, painfully-quiet moment, which only led to insecurity creeping its way into Sonic's head. Her expression was either of horror or disgust or both, which didn't help ease his insecurities whatsoever. Finally, after what seemed like forever, Amy plainly responded, "And how would you make that mistake when you're a guy?"

"Oh no," Sonic thought to himself, "this is bad. This is really really bad." He shifted in his seat awkwardly and began to look down at the table, unable to meet the eyes of his date. "How could I have let _that_ out?" He asked himself, inwardly, feeling his head getting uncomfortably heated in embarrassment, as he then attempted to answer, "It's... forget I said anything, Amy, it's nothing, I was young and we don't need to talk about it here..."

Her chest rapidly being filled with anger, Amy stood up from her chair and struck the table, replying, "Are you saying you **put on makeup?!** " No response from Sonic, other than a slight jump in startlement. Not even eye-contact. " _Excuse me,_ " Amy said, "Can you be a man and look at me for one second? You shouldn't be putting on makeup, Sonic, you're a **guy.** Guys don't wear makeup." Now, the once-fearless hedgehog was shaking. "Are you _kidding me?_ You're not even a real man, you're a **sissy!** " She spat, frustratedly, letting out all her frustration at how the date was turning out onto the hedgehog.

Getting more and more overwhelmed, on the brink of curling up into a ball, Sonic shut his eyes as tight as he could and rapidly spoke, "Amy c-c-can we please move on from this t-t-t-topic I'd really r-really like it if we d-d-d-d-did it'd be so nice if we could talk about literally literally anything-anything-anything else in the w-w-world right now i-instead of th-this I would really really really really like it if th-that happened right now."

Taking a brief moment to comprehend the hurried words of the hedgehog, Amy realized what had happened and sighed, feeling the frustration leave her now that it had all gotten out and she could see the effect it had on her date. After a few minutes of silence, she consoled, "Listen, Sonic, _I'm_ sorry... I've been on edge since you didn't walk me here like... like I thought was _obvious_ to do, frankly, but..." some remaining hostility crept its way into her voice, before she sighed once again, continuing, "... I shouldn't have raised my voice at you. Maybe we can... try this again some other time? Where you don't mention that weird thing about... you know?" The lady couldn't bring herself to mention it specifically, yet Sonic knew what she meant.

Making eye-contact with her again, Sonic replied, "Okay, Amy... thanks for trying..." His eyes were dead. He could feel their lifelessness as he attempted to give her a grateful look, before getting up and out of his chair. "Um... d-do you need me to w-w-walk you home?" He asked, though the both of them knew it was too late for any of that, which Amy made clear as she softly shook her head wordlessly, eliciting a nod back from Sonic. "O-okay... d-do you need me to pull your chair b-back for y-you—"

"I'll be fine, Sonic, thanks." Amy interjected.

Looking into her green eyes one last time, he could see the disappointment that filled within her when she looked at him. How he was completely unlike what she wanted him to be. Sonic sorrowfully thought to himself, "You and I both, Amy... You and I _both..._ " His first instinct was to speed off, but there were too many tables and guests around for him to be able to do that safely, which almost was the perfect torturous conclusion to the night. In a stuffy restaurant, **walking** away from a complete failure of a date as half the hedgehog he thought he was when he first entered it.

"Excuse me, sir?" Asked Madonna, stopping the hedgehog and keeping him still in that nightmare of a moment, "Are you leaving already? Should we cancel your order, then?" Sonic only had the energy to nod and give a half-hearted thumbs-up while maintaining eye-contact with the woman before leaving. "Well, we hope you had a good time while you were here, sir!" He could hear coming from behind him, as he hurriedly tried to get away as soon as he could.

Once he had gotten enough free space, he zipped away from the restaurant. 'This was a mistake' ran through his mind, over and over, echoing loudly and overwhelming all other thoughts. Then, with his head clouded and preoccupied, he hit a stone in the way of his path, tripped, and fell – scraping his knees harshly as he did and getting dirt all over himself. He stayed there, in pain, on the ground, for awhile. Empty and motionless.

* * *

"I do hope Cream hasn't been _too_ much of a handful for you today," Tails spoke into the mic of his Miles Electric, electronically-displaying a video stream of Blaze the Cat who was video chatting with the fox.

Amidst clips in the audio and video, Tails could tell that Blaze had laughed before responding, "Trust me, Tails – at this point, I can handle her as well as her mom ever could. I think I'm gonna be fine." Then, the sound of shoes walking along a wooden floor crackled its way through the speakers of the handheld device as Cream appeared in the display as well. "Hey Cream, I'm just chatting with the genius over here. Shouldn't you be getting ready for bed?" Blaze asked.

The humor was not lost on the rabbit, playing along as she responded in a way that sounded just sincere enough, "I'm not six years-old anymore, Blaze, I can go to bed when I want to and I know you know that!" Tails still wasn't used to seeing Cream be as self-aware and on the level as the rest of them, but none—not Tails, Blaze, Amy, or Sonic—could deny that they were happy to be there for her as she grew into it. Even so, some things never changed, and before long Cream was already being her usual polite self... for the most part. "I'm very sorry if I'm intruding on your call, but I have to drag Blaze over to that concert now," she smiled, mischievously, next to a now-confused cat.

"What concert? Me? _Now?_ At _this_ hour? I didn't agree to this at all!" Blaze replied, incredulously, searching the rabbit's eyes for any hint that she _might_ be kidding about it, but finding nothing. "Why wasn't this discussed? Why wasn't this brought up? Why didn't you ask me about this before?" Asked the guardian.

Chuckling as he watched the scene play out, Tails smiled and told the two, "I'll leave you both to that. Let me know how that concert goes goes, I'm sure it'll be a complete blast." There was even more clipping happening in the stream, Tails noticed, finding after blinking once that Cream had Blaze's hand and was about to take her away, which prompted him to quickly bid farewell to them, "Bye, now!"

"Bye!" He could hear the two say in the middle of their struggle, amidst the fuzziness of the audio the stream was outputting, before the stream finally shut off and Tails was once again without any company—digitally or otherwise—in his new, lonely excuse for a home.

Sighing, he absently tapped on his desk, taking a look down at it and finding a letter he had left there. He had received it in the mail recently, from Sonic, having been the only connection to Sonic he'd had in the months the hedgehog had been away before the call he made to him earlier that same night. Picking it up, the fox decided to take yet another look at it, reading,

" _Dear Tails... I've been trying to think of how I'd word this since I left, but I still haven't figured out how to say it the way I want to and... I think I'm done being gone already, so... here. You were always better at thinking ahead than I was, and, well, thinking in general... it was really nice having you around. I'm sorry I went away, I just... I've needed some extra time to figure out where I want my life to go, and I think I've finally figured it out. I'll be sure to let you know about it when I can. It's not easy, but... I feel like it's what I'm supposed to do, in order to be living right. My new number's at the bottom of this letter, call me when you can and we'll see when we can catch up. Sonic._ "

He never exactly felt assured by what Sonic told him in the letter, now _especially_ after learning what his new plan for life turned out to be. Tails was a computer genius, but people were still a puzzle to the fox, and Sonic was no exception to that—although he came the closest to being one after how much time they had spent, before he left. He recalled their conversation over the phone earlier – how he could technically recognize Sonic's voice, yet it was different somehow, like something in him had gone... missing, since he had last seen him.

As the fox thought of all this, his gaze wandered until he noticed the blue hedgehog face-down on his lawn, without a sign of movement. "... S-Sonic!" Tails yelled out as he hurriedly got out of his seat and out of his house, spinning his tails faster than he had spun them in perhaps years in order to reach the hedgehog and pick him up off the ground. "Sonic? Sonic, are you okay?" Tails asked as he shook the hedgehog who was nearly about to fall unconscious before the fox came to him.

Eyes opening and regaining focus slowly, Sonic muttered, "Tails..." immediately getting the full attention of the fox, who paused his shaking once he spoke, "... I bet you're wondering how I got here, haha..." the blue-quilled badnik-buster laughed, before letting out a cough or two. "Gah... I think I'm gonna need a place to stay," said the hedgehog, looking around before finding the fox's house right before him, "Hey... how'd your house get there?" Sonic asked, evidently still dazed from his 'crash landing.'

"Well it's my lawn, so..." Tails trailed off, causing Sonic to look around and realize his surroundings, "Now how did _you_ get _here_? What happened to that date?" He asked, to which Sonic replied with the saddest silence that Tails had never heard, coupled with a completely crushed look on his face. "Oh... Let's get you in the house, Sonic," the fox invited the hedgehog, before walking him to the door he had left open in his hurry to get to the hedgehog. "It's not... usually like that," Tails assured his best friend as they entered into the house.

For a brief moment, Sonic could take his mind off of his night and just admire the home the fox had made for himself. "Whoa, this place is _epic,_ bro..." he said, eliciting an eye-roll from the two-tailed companion of his, "Hey, I know I say that a lot, but... I mean, look! That 'Incredible Interstellar Amusement Park' has got _nothing_ on this place!"

Chuckling, Tails was flattered. It was like no time had passed at all, like nothing had changed, like Sonic was _back_ for the first time since he had left to begin with. Even so, the fox was still concerned for the hedgehog. At the risk of bringing the mood back down, Tails asked, concernedly, "Sonic, uh... can you tell me what... what happened?" Just as was feared, Sonic was brought back down. Not nearly as much as he had been when he found him on his lawn, but it was nonetheless clear for the fox to see. "You don't have to if you don't want to, but I think you might feel better if you do," Tails reasoned, trying to not be too forceful on his troubled friend.

Taking a deep breath, Sonic conceded, "Yeah... I think you're right, Tails..." He considered taking a seat, but thought it best to stay on his feet, starting, "I figured this'd go better, since... I mean, who likes me better than Amy, right?" His nervous rhetorical question was met with a nervous, reluctant laugh from the fox, and, after an awkward minute or two of what little laughter it had gotten died down, Sonic continued, pacing back and forth, "So I kinda blew my only shot I had at living a real life, after giving up so much of myself, doing so much convincing in my head to get there... No biggie, right?... It's only the end of the world, haha, _geesh..._ " Sonic was growing more frustrated the more he spoke of the night, which Tails could hear as he went on, "There _has to_ be more to life than this, Tails. Life can't just be waiting an entire hour, at the same place, for her to show up; then, when she does, next thing I know I was supposed to show up at her place unannounced to walk her there; then there's no chili dogs at that stuffy, bland, boring restaurant; then one thing leads to another and she says I'm 'not a real man,' an—"

"What?" Tails interjected, his mouth agape as he was completely taken aback by Sonic's recounting of the date, "'Not a real man'? What's that mean?" He asked the hedgehog.

His question made Sonic stop in his tracks, wary from Amy's reaction earlier that night. But—he figured—he had little to lose, so he answered, "I gave her a tip about her makeup 'cause things seemed to be looking up at that point and I wasn't thinking that she'd be weirded out about me having, ah... experience with makeup..." His voice trailed off as his mood went back down, his eyes glued to the ground as his heart braced itself for what he assumed was to come.

Instead, Tails responded, "And?" Sonic's gaze, suddenly, with hope, found the fox's blue eyes again and saw that they were free of hate or disgust. Their eyes were locked onto one another as the fox consoled, "Sonic, you're as much of a man as you want to be, without makeup or _with_ makeup... Years ago, the Sonic I knew taught me through his actions not to let others control me or who I am. You taught me they didn't matter if they didn't know or didn't care who I was beyond how weird they thought my second tail was, and you helped me find people that cared about me with it, without any shame. I hope the Sonic I knew is still there and can pick himself up from this. I believe in him, 'cause... he taught me to believe in myself..." Tails began to tear up as he saw the wide-eyed look on Sonic's face.

"... I knew I finally found something I couldn't run away from..." Sonic simply said in reply, sparking curiosity within the fox, "No matter how many months I spent away... I thought if I could just change myself—if I tried hard enough, I could become some boring guy and live a boring, unfulfilling life in settling for Amy and maybe, finally, get away from it, but I couldn't... somehow I had a feeling all along I couldn't do it... Now I know..."

Puzzled and more than a little unsure of what the hedgehog meant or how it was related to his consolation, Tails asked, "'Now you know' what? What do you know, now?"

Sonic sighed, "I know now there's no escaping it: I..." Right then, the words caught in his throat. "I-I-I," he attempted again, fruitlessly. He knew what he wanted to say, but the words wouldn't leave his lips. "I l-luh... I l-l-luuhhh..." he retried, before finally groaning, "This is _so_ uncool, I just... I can't say those words..." Tails looked utterly confused, so the hedgehog tried to find a different way to say it, starting, "Uh... l'il bro _,_ listen up, haha... There's someone who likes you... so much... and... h-h-h-he might be right... h-h... h-hee... here. Talking to you." When he finished, he could see the fox realizing what he meant. "He's me, I mean," he added.

"Yeah, I managed to figure _that_ part out," Tails nodded as he attempted to process the completely unfamiliar situation he found himself in. "I think I understand, and... and I think someone who likes you too just heard you say that to them," the two-tailed fox replied to the blue-furred blur, who seemed to understand after a moment of thought and, after a look around the area, finding that Tails was the only other one there with him.

They maintained eye-contact, blinking minimally. One's hand went on another's knee, someone leaned in while someone else took a seat – it was hard to tell who did what or who started it, but it didn't matter. All that mattered was that they were all alone and no one was trying to be someone they weren't. It didn't matter what time it was, it just mattered that the moon shined beautifully through the window and made the scene _glow._ It didn't matter what either of them had to do the day after, what they were doing was what mattered. It couldn't have mattered any less what anyone else in the whole world would've thought or said about it, all that mattered was that they were cuddling and it felt okay. It was all them; completely them, and nothing but them.

Sonic's daring, teal eyes restored at last, after he had spent months ridding himself of it. No matter how much society told the both of them to be different, no matter how hard they tried, there was no way their hearts could be stomped out permanently. They could only be themselves, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. "What would I do without you, buddy..." he said as he embraced the two-tailed fox.

Tails smiled as he reciprocated the embrace and replied, "I don't know – probably drown somewhere in Chemical Plant Zone?" When the hedgehog pulled away and gave him a look of shock, the fox laughed and assured, " _Kidding_ , I was just kidding. I promise." This eased the hedgehog up and they resumed their embrace. "Yeah, it's good to have you around again, Sonic... Say," Tails started, "do you think it'd be okay if we... lived together? It'd make the place feel a lot more like a home..." he asked, unsure what to expect as a response.

Flashing his trademark grin once again at the fox, Sonic joked, "That's a _great_ excuse, Tails, I couldn't have thought of a better one myself," raising a smile on the fox's face, then answering, " _Of course_ I wanna hang with you, l'il bro, I lo—... geesh, that's _still_ hard to say," Sonic shook his head, "I'll have to work on that... which'd be a lot easier with you around! Wow, we've got plenty of excuses to go around, here!" He laughed, before sighing and finally, seriously responding, "Nothing would make me happier, little buddy."

Swirling his tails in delight, Tails smiled at the hedgehog's answer and briefly gave himself permission to totally lose himself in the embrace. Then, he remembered, "The deck! Sonic, you have to see the deck, come on!" The hedgehog appeared to be game for it, so the fox flew ahead of the hedgehog towards it, letting his partner thunder up the stairway before they both finally reached the top and saw the sky, lit with the twinkle of the stars and the shine of the moon.

Descending back down to Sonic's level, Tails reached for and grabbed the hedgehog's hand, squeezing it gently as the both of them took in the breathtaking sight in that perfect moment the two would no doubt remember for years to come. "Epic?" Tails said to the hedgehog.

"... Yeah, _this_ is epic." Sonic responded, leaning his head on the fox's shoulder, as they both looked at the starry sky for as long as they wanted to. Sonic was liberated from the need to satisfy any 'role' that he or society at large had set up for himself, and Tails finally had a roommate and a life-partner to spend what would have been very lonely days otherwise. Stroking the fox's back, Sonic said, "Never stop being you, Tails, please."

Looking back at the hedgehog, Tails gave him a warm smile and replied, "You too, Sonic." It was natural, it was powerful, it was freeing, it was sincere. There was no mistaking it – real love was in the air, that night, and it was the love that one two-tailed fox and a blue-furred hedgehog shared. No one could take it away, no one could spoil it. It was theirs.

 **The End**

* * *

 **Author's Notes:** Good god I love writing these! :D

Madonna was actually originally meant to be a love-interest for Sonic, back when they were developing the original game on the Sega Genesis, predating Princess Elise by at least fifteen years! It was nice to include her in this little gay story of mine, one of those little references that'll maybe just amuse me. Worth it. x3

We also get to see Blaze and Cream! This was actually my first time writing Blaze, but I've been looking forward ever since I saw the cutscenes of Sonic Rush (2005, DS) and her dynamic with Cream the Rabbit! I think I got it down well enough, here. c:

Of course, Amy is a tricky one to write, given how much misogyny comes 'baked' into the character as a product of her almost exclusively-male writers. I do my best to make what I can out of pre-existing characterizations, and here I tried to portray Amy as a traditional-minded, old-fashioned woman wanting desperately to have a dashing, heteronormative, conventional man to complete her, only to find out Sonic isn't that guy after years of chasing him. I wouldn't be surprised - she looked for a relationship before they could really be friends.

Writing Sonic/Tails is always fun because every time I do I feel more confident in how good they are for each other. A lot of angst from my own life with regards to relationships and how my queerness has been received went into this, I hope you all enjoyed it very much!

Any and all reviews, likes and/or follows are super appreciated! Thanks for reading, all of you! I hope all of you have a nice day/night! :D


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